Rocket engines made by Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: AJRD), are now providing in-flight maneuvers for the Intelsat 29e communications satellite, which launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana on Jan. 27. Boeing Satellite Systems International, which built the Intelsat 29e satellite, has announced that the spacecraft is now operational.
“Aerojet Rocketdyne is thrilled to be a part of another successful satellite program for Boeing, as well as part of another successful Intelsat mission,” said Ron Felix, vice president of the Space Systems Business Unit at Aerojet Rocketdyne. “Aerojet Rocketdyne has rocket propulsion products on every one of the 50+ operational Intelsat satellites located around the globe, and we look forward to continuing that tradition.”
Aerojet Rocketdyne propulsion includes 16 rocket engines on the satellite: 12 four-Newton MR-111C hydrazine and four 22-Newton MR-106L hydrazine engines, all of which provide attitude control and adjustment, east-west station-keeping, spin control, decommissioning and settling burns. The MR-111 and MR-106 engines have extensive flight history, each having flown on more than 2,000 missions with 100 percent mission success.
Intelsat 29e is the first of six Intelsat EpicNG satellites being built by Boeing. Intelsat EpicNG is a high performance, next generation satellite platform that delivers global high-throughput capability. The next four Intelsat EpicNG satellites, also being built by Boeing, will include six Aerojet Rocketdyne electric propulsion thrusters for north-south station-keeping, in addition to the 16 hydrazine rocket engines. The electric propulsion system provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne for each of the four remaining Intelsat EpicNG satellites includes a 4.4kW power processing unit, electrical harnessing and four 2.2kW MR-510 electric arcjet thrusters. Aerojet Rocketdyne has flown more than 170 MR-510 arcjet thrusters with 100 percent mission success. The MR-510 arcjet provides fuel-efficiency performance that is three times better than the MR-111 and MR-106 hydrazine rocket engines.
Aerojet Rocketdyne is an innovative company delivering solutions that create value for its customers in the aerospace and defense markets. The company is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader that provides propulsion and energetics to the space, missile defense and strategic systems, tactical systems and armaments areas, in support of domestic and international markets. Additional information about Aerojet Rocketdyne can be obtained by visiting our websites at www.Rocket.com and www.AerojetRocketdyne.com.
